Just finished this book, the first in a new series by the author of The Expanse series (which was also great). Anyone read it yet? I really liked it.
The story is about humanity being easily conquered by a massively powerful, multi-species galactic empire, and how a group of humans tries to survive. Not terribly science-y (the second half of the book takes place on an alien planet with dozens of species from different planets and somehow they all are fine on the same temperature and gas mixture), which makes it more space opera than sci-fi.
My take-away, from longer comments elsewhere, was that unlike volume one of The Expanse, where I wasn’t sure if I’d read more, but did and read the whole series, I doubt if I’ll continue with this.at all.
I finished it a couple days ago. I agree that it was as gripping as Leviathan Wakes (the Expanse), but I’m definitely excited to read more. The Swarm was easily the most interesting character, and it seems like it will become an even bigger part of the story going forward.
Note that just like The Expanse, it seems that Corey is (are?) going to be doing novellas in between releases. The first, Livesuit, comes out October 1st.
I read it and I enjoyed it. It felt less like the Expanse, and more like an Adrian Tchaikovsky*-wannabe book, I will definitely read the next books in the series, it was enjoyable enough.
*I am a massive Tchaikovsky fan, he’s insanely prolific, so there is a seemingly never ending catalog that I can devour! I will stop hijacking now
I was also reminded of Tchaikovsky in terms of world-building and the exploration of different ways of thinking and social setting in aliens, rather than focus on technical minutiae. In that vein, I’m somewhat disappointed in the appearance of the ‘humanity is special’-trope: the humans encountered in the book are something like a former human colony that lost connection to their past when (apparently) the ship that got them there exploded, but they happen to have just figured out how to interpolate between different trees of life, making them useful to their captors, and seem to be biochemically related to an engineered species used to wage war against those—with the obvious implication being that it may be mainline humanity who’s the real adversary in the war.
Still, though, I definitely plan to check out further releases.
I like the idea that Anjiin is basically a 3000 year old trap set for the Carryx. The society seemed to place a heavy importance on science and engineering, something the past humans would’ve known the Carryx would value when they eventually invade. We also don’t know how the swarm got to Anjiin. I’m thinking it was always there and only activated once the Carryx entered the system.
I just finished it and liked it. It’s a much smaller scope than The Expanse, with only two settings and more stable alliances and adversaries. I think if you go into it expecting Expanse 2, you’ll be disappointed. But if you just want some good space opera that keeps your attention, it’s pretty cool.
One thing that does remind me of The Expanse: the authors are really good at making you want to move on to the next chapter without resorting to gimmicks and stupid cliffhangers. I stayed up way too late reading.
Well, I just finished their novella ‘Livesuit’, set in the same universe as ‘The Mercy of Gods’. I actually enjoyed ‘livesuit’ a bit more than ‘Mercy’. Here, the rest of humanity (those who remember their Earth origins and were busy trading with each other on hundreds of worlds) are facing the same foes as those humans in ‘Mercy’. I’m feeling more interested in their new series now.